Down Time
by lemonpiefirefly
Summary: Sam has a memorable encounter during some time off. Post-Heroes, Pete-less cross-over. Mild implied Sam/Jack UST. Thanks to jackwabbit for indispensable beta. captain, as always.
1. Escape

Down time. The others on the base lived for this.

Why did it hold a vague dread for her?

Of course, she knew very well the reason this unstructured time - for her, time that would be spent alone - seemed such a spectre.

The thoughts and feelings she normally held at bay to get the job done would come knocking on the door in "down time".

Thoughts and feelings that would be mired together in a heavy, jumbled swirl.

Never enough time to straighten them out; never a resolution for the utter confusion they brought to bear.

Because of her focus and ability to block out emotional responses to the stressful events that often went hand-in-hand with her job, many of the base personnel had the impression she was something of a super-computer or an ice queen. It's not that she wasn't a passionate person though, as some of these co-workers thought; she really was. She was just so busy and focused in the day-to-day grind; she pushed those things out of her mind, out of her way to get things accomplished. As they crept back to the fore in her thoughts on her way home each night, she had just enough time to recognize they were there before she hit the pillow for another exhausted night of dreamless, or dream-amnesiac, sleep.

Then, on these days off, they came crashing back in. Long-ignored emotions. Good, bad, all of she rushed around trying to do those little chores to maintain her "home" ('God, it was amazing that this place still felt like home given how little time she spent here' she mused), she had compressed bursts of thoughts about so many people. Her team, her family...thoughts about everything were sharper, heightened. Happiness, sadness, love. A week's worth of these thoughts, brought into focus for a couple moments at a time before being chased off by the next subject she'd been ignoring. They were distilled, concentrated; their impact more potent this way. More than she could deal with, sometimes.

Dad, Mark, Cass, Janet...

Her breath caught in her throat as she thought that name. While she was on base, she still couldn't afford to let herself deal with memories of her friend, though it had been a long time since Stargate Command's CMO had been killed in the line of duty. Sometimes it still felt too raw, and she was afraid of the paralyzing sadness that she had felt right after that mission. She couldn't let herself be that distant mentally with so much potentially riding on the line every time she was there. She ran through the excuses in her mind again, 'I can't allow that; I have to be sharp. I have to be ready,' and then she felt another hitch in her chest as she thought of the suddenness of her friend's death.

Repressed feelings crashed down on her for the first time in days, and she felt crushed by the rockslide of loss. The thought that was a mantra every time she thought of her petite friend started its roiling curl through her consciousness, 'God, I miss Janet. Why couldn't I save her?'

She sank down on the edge of the couch. As she leaned forward, elbows on her knees and head bent forward into her hands, she shot her fingers through the front of her hair. Her eyes ran wet and her breath came in uneven gasps. The shadows cast by the sunlight streaming through the windows stretched across the floor as the sun fell further from its zenith. She didn't notice she was gripping her hair till she pulled too hard at the roots and the sting roused her from her dismal thoughts. Startled, she ran her hands across her moist, hot cheeks and sat up, 'How long was I sitting there like that? I have got to get a hold of myself and get out of here for awhile.'

She willed her breath to a more regular rhythm and felt the heat begin to leave her cheeks as she tried to get the memory under wraps again. When she felt the cool air drying her face, she got up and crossed the room over to the broom and dustpan. As the solid feel of the handle in her grip registered in her mind, she felt more of her regular mask settle back in place. She could hold it together awhile longer. She had work to do. She sniffled and ran a shaky hand by her moist eyes once more, and got back to her sweeping.

She finished up a bit more of her routine housework. The minutes turned into an hour and she'd managed to get through without any more emotional landslides. Her meanderings, tidying up the last little bit of leftover cleaning supplies, took her past the bathroom. She stopped and walked in, and as she looked in the mirror she sized up her reflection. Her eyelids, previously puffy and red, were back to normal. The rest of her face, though, flushed as she had an errant and dangerous thought. _Damn spring anyway, _she mused.

There wasn't enough time to dwell on the subject of that little thought tonight.

No, not enough time left in her life to sort that one out.

All the more reason for her outing (or should I call it 'escape'? she thought with a sneer) tonight.

She shook her head a little and splashed some water on her face, physically trying to brush off the lingering sensation of need. Bracing her hands on the counter, she took a couple deep breaths to calm herself. She felt herself relaxing again, and breathed a sigh. She glanced in the mirror again, this time eyes locking on reproving eyes. Her reflection stared back at her, shaking its head a little sadly and clearly disapproving of her avoiding the issue again.

She walked over to the closet and retrieved the dark jacket to match the leggings she'd already slid into, darted a sidelong glance at the recreant in the glass, and tried to banish her for the time being by turning off the bathroom light. As she walked through the house, trying to turn her thoughts away from the past and future and just be for awhile, she continued to feel a small tug from the inner voice. She locked the front door and stood on her porch for a moment, adjusting to the night air. She shrugged into the short heavy leather coat. The cold air held a bracing, biting chill, but it was mixed with a little extra humidity, a little hint that winter was losing its hold and spring was around the corner. 'That's part of my problem,' she thought. 'Spring always does this to me.' Looking toward the street, she finally felt the last vestiges of her inner critic dissipate like a fog as she spied her companion for the night. With a happy thought, she walked down the steps toward the gate, and freedom.

She tucked her precisely-mussed hair under her helmet, feeling a little silly that she'd taken the time in the first place, and climbed onto her motorcycle, her leathers creaking a little as she settled into the seat. Feeling the cerebral take a back seat to the primal as the vibrations from revving the engine reverberated through her chest and seemed to race through her limbs, she popped up the kickstand, pulled away from the curb, and took off down the twilit street.

She rode with a sense of liberation; she wasn't thinking, but neither was she repressing.

Living in the moment, she just was. The growl of the powerful motor effectively drowned out any higher thought. She was feeling the wind, the vibrations of the bike, the fluid motion and shifts in balance as she wove through the streets on her way out of town.

She didn't know where she was going, but she would know when to stop when she got there.


	2. Newcomer

After riding for about forty-five minutes, she spied it. Well off-the-beaten-path, well away from her normal stomping grounds, anonymity all but assured. A small tavern, mostly wood construction on the outside, and warmly-lit from wasn't a night to seek out the type of place with no windows and all neon outside; she'd had some darker moments when that was exactly what was needed. Not tonight; tonight she just wanted to get away and have some time out. Time to be herself, whatever that was anymore, and not a leader, a fix-it guru, or a problem-solver. She climbed off the bike, feeling a little strange and heavy to be walking on solid ground again, and popped off her helmet. She left it hanging on the handlebar of the bike, walked to the wooden-handled door, ran her hand through her hair to banish the helmet-head she knew she'd developed, and opened the door.

'Nice choice,' she thought to was a bar along the wall to her left, some wooden tables and chairs, and one pool table at the back with a long, antiquated light suspended over it. There was a minimum of cigarette smoke, a few patrons scattered about, and a fireplace along the right-hand wall with a small fire going. After her ride in the chilly night air, she was happy to see there was a table near the fireplace that was empty. It was definitely calling to her.

She strode over to the bar, pondering as she raked the bottles with an appraising glance. Her eyes lit on one, and with a wicked thought, she placed her order. 'Why do I do things like that?' she thought, and instinctively the answer came back to her. It was the emotional equivalent of being unable to leave a loose tooth alone. She closed the door that was opening in her mind. Nope, that was why she was here. Leave the thinking behind. 'I'm getting the drink; beyond that, subject closed,' she told the resurfacing commentator in her mind.

She walked over to the table, took off her riding jacket and hung it on the back of the chair, then took off her gloves and stacked them on the table as she sat down, facing the fire. She slid down in her chair just a bit, one leg under her, the other booted foot stretched out under the table. 'One thing to be said about being out alone', she thought with a tiny smirk, 'no fighting for legroom'. It was a perennial issue when she was out with the guys; any of them. They all had trouble in that department. She chuckled as a sudden stray thought, a remembered outing with Janet, wandered across her mind. It had been at an Asian diner that had such tiny tables she actually had trouble splitting legroom with the petite doctor. That led to a juvenile game of "footsie" that had them both giggling until Janet snorted, and then they had laughed until she got the hiccups. She sobered as she thought of her absent friend, and felt her solitude settle around her shoulders like a too-heavy cloak.

'Where's that drink?', she thought, and stared for a moment into the fire. When a glass was set down in front of her, she started a little, finally remembering to blink. She thanked the man for the drink without looking up, and as he walked off, she wiped wetness away from the corner of her eye. She stared at the reflections of the flames from the fireplace; so many small flames licking up at her from the ice cubes and the heavy, amber liquid in her glass. She swirled it around, watching the small, complex eddies and patterns that formed as the ice cubes slowly melted and let off streamers of water like miniature solar winds in her glass.

She took a sip; she was a little cautious. This wasn't her normal fare. She usually stuck to the clear stuff, occasionally having a little dark rum or something, but this wasn't her standard. Plus, this wasn't the cheap stuff either. She'd only seen this type one other time. Redbreast Irish whiskey. She was probably doing it a disservice by letting it be 'on the rocks', but then, he wasn't here to give her a lecture about it in that horrible fake brogue he affected any time he talked to her about the stuff. Well, it may not be room temperature, but on the path of thought she was heading down, she'd be sure to have the glass empty before too much more dilution from the melting ice could occur anyway.

She found its strength bracing, and its fire not too difficult to handle going down. Certainly wasn't an instant favorite, but it was alright. She finished it a little more quickly than she'd planned, then a waiter she hadn't noticed before slid by. The man picked up her empty, and she allowed herself to imagine a train of thought going with it. She ordered something a bit more girly this time, an amaretto sour, and scanned the bar while she waited for it to arrive. She took the glass when it came, and slowly sipped as her mind swirled down paths she tried not to pay attention to. 'Let the thinking happen without me, for once' she mused. After a while, she went back to trying to distract herself with her surroundings.

Nothing really held her interest, so she went back to staring at the fire. She felt, more than heard, the door open, glancing up as a swirl of chilled air swept past her, stirring the fire that leapt and sparked with the rush of wind. The fired wavered and slowly settled as the new invigorating breeze was cut off unceremoniously as the door was pulled closed by the new patron. The man in question wore a long coat, which he absentmindedly brushed off in the doorway before turning his attention to the bar. He walked over and asked the bartender for a phone. The bartender gestured to one a patron was talking on, and offered him a drink while he waited.

"No, thanks. I hopefully won't be here too long; my car's having some trouble and I just need to get some help with it."

She turned back to the fire and her own insular musings, but was soon startled to feel someone hovering behind her.

"Um, can I help you?" she asked, not yet pulling her eyes from the fireplace.

The newcomer started a little, clearly not realizing he'd breached the woman's perimeter defenses. "Oh, uh, sorry,' he replied hastily, "just trying to warm up a bit."

Something in the man's voice, and the fact that he hadn't retreated from her somewhat unintentionally peevish query, made her turn to face him. She took in the tall figure, the long coat and nice clothes, the almost self-mocking, apologetic expression.

The nice eyes.

The full lips.

'What are you doing The remembered expression from the mirror demanded an answer. Was that horror or hopefulness in the internal tone? Or a little of both...

She wrested control of her tongue back from the wary voice in her mind and spoke to the man."Hey; why don't you have a seat? It's not taken."

His expression warmed a fraction, finding some common ground between them in the expression in the woman's eyes. "Oh, uh, okay. Sure. I'm not planning to be here long, just waiting for the phone."

The man took off his long overcoat, revealing a nice suit. He folded it over the third of four chairs at their little table. As he sat down across from her, close to the fire, the blonde woman was intentionally a bit slow to move her leg back, and he bumped into her.

The man slid his chair around, closer to her but making their legs less at odds, and said by way of apology, "Oh, sorry; I've got long legs."

The spot he'd bumped into on her leg felt like it had been hit with a live wire; it was a nidus of sparks that sent a shiver up her back. She hoped the slight tremble in her chest didn't translate into her voice as she heard herself say, more seductively than she thought herself capable, "Me, too."

How she'd managed to say that seductively she wasn't sure, but it wasn't just in her head, because the man paused in his chair-rearranging and flashed her a confused, penetrating look.

She jumped in, wanting to push forward past anything he might say to forestall her. Anything she, in the guise of the over-thinker in her head, might say to forestall herself, too. She wanted to back off a little, not seem too eager, just friendly. Like she did this all the time. That the attractiveness was an innate quality, not born of a hint of desperation for human connection. She pasted on a smile that she hoped didn't look too plastic and didn't quiver like her insides were suddenly doing.

"Hey, since we're sharing this table for a few minutes, I guess we should introduce ourselves. I'm Samantha."

Leaning forward a little, she proffered her hand for shaking across the table. He paused for a moment, looking a little...she wasn't sure. Pensive? It seemed like his features darkened a little at her name. She wasn't sure she could trust her senses, though, because as suddenly as it had come it was gone, like the shadow of a small cloud on a sunny day, quickly scuttling by. The shadow was truly banished as he seemed to come to some internal decision and responded by dazzling her with a smile that reached almost into his eyes, sparkling with amber glints from the fire still dancing in the fireplace. He reached out to shake the offered hand, and at his touch, it was hard to pay attention to what he said next.

She was still staring at those eyes that seemed so hard to define. Green? Blue? Hazel? A little ring of brown. Maybe it was this firelight, leaping around like a living thing, that made his eyes so difficult to characterize.

A self-aware synapse finally fired.

'What. Are. You. Doing?' she asked herself.

She told herself to shut up.

The man seemed not to notice that she was staring, but his voice jolted her from the haze in which she found herself. "Hi. I'm Fox. Fox Mulder. But, uh, no-one really calls me Fox."

Sam's smile settled in and felt more relaxed and natural at the bemused and slightly self-deprecating tone he used. "Okay, do I call you Mulder, then? Or am I supposed to guess?"

He seemed to shake off the last of his previous thoughtfulness and chuckled at that, which jostled her hand that he was still holding from their introductions. She reluctantly let go of his electric touch.

"No, you're right. It's usually Mulder."

"Well, Mulder, what brings you out to these parts?" Sam had pulled her hands into her lap, below the edge of the table. Folding them together, she felt the increased heat in her right hand that had been in his grasp, and marveled at the thrill that ran through her from the simple action of shaking hands.

"Oh, I'm wrapping up a case. I'm with the FBI."

'Wonderful. G-man,' the Air Force officer mused, 'what IS it with me, anyway?'

"What about you, Samantha? What are you doing here tonight?" Taking in her attire and the thick leather jacket draped on the back of her chair, he continued, putting her together with something he'd noticed on his way into the establishment. "That your bike out there?"

"We have one thing in common; I don't usually go by 'Samantha' either. Call me 'Sam'. And yeah, that's my bike out there. I was just out for a ride; little down-time from work for a couple days." The leggy blonde grinned inwardly with pride at her favorite toy. She remembered the look on the Colonel's ('well, back when he was a Colonel') face when he saw her with it for the first time. 'There's a lot you don't know about me, Sir,' she'd thought triumphantly in answer to his raised eyebrow. She had another internal smile at that, this time tinged with sadness, 'There still is.'

Judging by his expression, it looked to Sam that Mulder was suddenly more engaged in the conversation. The suggestion of a spirited streak seemed to be something that piqued his interest.

She was therefore a little let-down by the brevity of his reply, "Oh, it's nice."

Perhaps he had more to add; details of his own exploits? She gave him an opening, "Thanks. You ride?"

"No, not really."

And with that fairly curt reply, the conversation seemed to stall like it had run out of gas. Perplexed, Sam wasn't nearly as sure this was heading somewhere as she had been when the enigmatic figure first sat down. He seemed nice enough, but he suddenly didn't seem to be picking up the signals here. Or, it seemed to her more like he was picking them up, studying them, and then just laying them aside.

Maybe the little game was over? Time for him to bug out? Alright, then. She'd give him a different kind of opening. A door marked "exit", if that's what he wanted. Remind him he wasn't planning to stay. "So, Mulder...why are you waiting for the phone?"

Distractedly, he replied, "Oh, it's the mountains. Cell phone doesn't work well up here."

Sam chuckled a little; maybe this guy was just clueless. Didn't seem the designing type, after all. She felt she might as well be talking to Daniel."Well, yes; I mean more the other 'why'; the immediate 'why'." He seemed a million miles away.

"OH, right. Car's on the fritz, so I need to call a mechanic."

Carter thought, 'Do I go there, or do I stay quiet? Is this a possibility? And if it is, is he the type to be impressed or threatened by this? The motorcycle thing seemed to perk him up, but then he just shut down. Oh, Hell. Just do it.'

She looked innocent for a second, then drawled out, "Weeeellll, you might be in luck. I'm a, um, bit of a mechanic myself. I may be able to get you patched up. Where are you headed?"

What was that? Hopefulness in his expression? 'Or in your mind,' her annoying inner voice cooed.

Mulder replied, "I was just headed back into Colorado Springs tonight, back to my hotel. But that's a good..."

"Forty-five minutes away; I know, I drove up from there."

"Oh; I was going to say 'an hour', but yeah. So, I have to get a good piece down the road. Well, then, would you mind taking a look?"

'This is looking a bit better after all,' Sam crowed back to her inner voice. "Oh, sure. Why don't you finish warming up a bit and tell me what it's doing?"

So he regaled her with a tale of a ghosty electrical problem and some inconsistent power. Her brain filed away the symptoms; it was shaping up to be some simple problem, probably the alternator. All the while, the rest of her was paying attention to the rest of him. The heat of the whiskey from earlier in the evening had left her system quite awhile ago, but it was being replaced with an entirely new type of warmth.

When the tale was at an end, she stood and pulled on her jacket, noting his poorly-hidden appreciative look out of the corner of her eye. Feeling a bit emboldened by this, after he shrugged into his overcoat and started to button it, she grabbed his sleeve and tugged him out the door.

The serendipitously malfunctioning conveyance in question was a nondescript rental sedan. Sam had a bit of trouble getting it started. 'Yup, alternator,' she connections weren't great and that was a part of the problem she could fix, but it just needed a new alternator. She could probably rig something good enough to get him back into town if there wasn't much else wrong. The headlights might go out but he should be able to drive it. She could stick with him on the way back into town in case they did, to light his way and keep him visible to other traffic they might encounter. There shouldn't be much on the way back down this road at this time of night. Then she saw something more alarming. The brake line on one side was scored and slick. It looked as if it had been leaking.

Carter peeked her pale features out from under the edge of the dark sedan and peered up at him. "I have two odd questions, Mulder. Were you off-roading this sedan, and did the pedal feel a bit mushy when you tried to brake?"

The tall man confirmed her suspicions before he said a word as he let out a dramatic sigh, rolled his eyes and looked skyward. He then turned his head to face back away from town, back where he must have acquired the damage. "Oh, crap. Did I chew up the brake lines out there?"

It must have been an interesting trip for the hapless rental car, Sam thought. "Well, these gouges were either the result of some badly-placed rocks, or some over-sized rodent. I took a guess..."

He snorted. "Yeah; I took it a bit 'off-off Broadway' out there. It wasn't giving me trouble before, but I guess it would now. Not something I need to ride down out of these hills on, huh? I don't figure you've got spare brake lines and brake fluid on you, do you?"

'Whatever happened to "be prepared"? Oh well; lack of preparation for this actually works a bit in my favor,' she thought. 'Tonight might get a little more interesting yet.' "Well, actually, no. We could improvise something, but there's really no need. Look, you have anything you need to take out of the car with you?"

"Actually, no. I was delivering some things, but that's taken care of. Why?"

"Well, I was just thinking, Mulder; didn't you say you were headed back to Colorado Springs?"

He looked at her with an expression that was unreadable in the shadows cast by the parking lot light and replied briefly, "Yeah."

"Well, this is all stuff I can fix pretty fast, but we'll need some tools and parts. Why don't I just take you into town and I can meet you tomorrow with the supplies and we'll come back and fix it?"

"Oh, Samanth-I mean, Sam. It's too much trouble, really. I'll just call out the tow truck and be done with it. I'm sure you have more important things to be doing anyway."

"Well," she began ('sound casual, sound casual' her brain chanted) "I am off for a few days, remember?" She continued with a cheeky tone, "I'd be happy to help a stranded representative of our government."

"Well, this wasn't strictly government business. Few loose ends I had to tie up."

"See then? You'll be dealing with the repairs out of your own pocket. I'd be happy to help. Get me lunch tomorrow or something and we'll call it even."

He eyed the bike a little warily. "Forty-five minutes, you say?"

She looked at him, a bit puzzled, then laughed. "Closer to an hour with a passenger. Deal?"

"Deal."


	3. Just Sam

She headed back inside to pay her small tab and looked at the time. Had she really been here four hours? She'd been doing more thinking, or mental gyrations to avoid thinking, than she'd realized. Two drinks in four hours; at least she didn't need to second-guess her sobriety.

She walked out, then realized she only had one helmet. Legally, that wasn't a big deal since Colorado didn't have a mandatory helmet law, but Mulder seemed like he might be the type to be a little 'stuffy'.Sam offered him her helmet. He took one look and his eyes sparkled as one side of his mouth quirked up, almost impishly. "Not to admit I've got a big head or anything, but your helmet's going to be too small for me."

"Good point. Hey, if you wanna call that tow truck..."

"Eh, I'll be fine. Let's get this show on the road."

She climbed on and strapped on her headgear, then felt the bike shift as he slid on behind her and tucked the long end of his overcoat up where it wouldn't get in the way of the wheels. She revved the motor and tapped the kickstand, and felt him slide up a little closer to her to better settle in the seat. He was holding onto the seat, being too much of a gentleman. She yelled back at him over the engine noise, "You'll want to hold on; you hold onto the seat like that and you'll freeze your hands off, plus you'll start to lose your grip when your hands get too cold. You don't have any gloves. Just hold onto my waist; it's okay."

"Well, a boy doesn't want to presume," he yelled back.

She felt his warm hands snake around her leather-clad waist. 'Just breathe normally,' she told herself, thinking that was going to be about as easy as when they told her that in pilot's training the first time they put her through an altitude-loss scenario. Oh, boy was this going to be a long ride.

They made their way through the winding roads back to town. He was obviously not new to motorcycles; she took it a little slow at first, wanting to make sure he wasn't going to throw her off balance, but as he moved with her, anticipating the turns perfectly, she took things a bit faster, closer to her normal driving speed. Despite his earlier banter about wanting to go slow, his grip didn't tighten, nor did his reactions seem less smooth, comfortable, or automatic as she accelerated. It had been a long, long time since she'd ridden together with anyone, and she was the one in the back before. Always, with him, she was in the back. Not because she wasn't a good driver at the time, but because Jonas Hanson was a chauvinist asshole. It felt good to be the one in the driver's seat this time. It also, she had to admit, felt intoxicatingly fabulous to have someone there, pressed up against her, warm, strong...her mind tried to get her to back off, 'EASY there, Sam. You're just taking him home. Just cool it.'

In what seemed too short a time, they were at Mulder's hotel. They both climbed off the bike, and she popped the kickstand down. She was about to get his information to arrange to meet him in her car tomorrow to go fix his sedan. She unzipped her jacket and took out her wallet and a pen to write it down, and saw him looking at her. She flipped open her wallet and retrieved a scrap of paper, and when she looked up, he had an intense, questioning look on his face. She stuffed the wallet back in her inside jacket pocket, holding his gaze all the while, the paper and pen forgotten in her right hand. He slowly walked forward and looked like he was about to say something, when Sam surprised herself by closing the last half-stride's-worth distance between them in a sudden motion.

She knew if he spoke she wouldn't be able to do this. It would break whatever spell held them in thrall. She let the pen and paper fall to the ground, held his gaze daring him to call off what she was about to do, then when he didn't back away, she reached to smooth an errant lock of hair on his forehead and then ran her hand down the side of his face, leaned in, and kissed him. It started small, but the two quickly found themselves drawn into a mutual need, and it showed. They kissed, hungrily but not frantically. These were not teenagers, these were seasoned campaigners. They knew what they were doing, and they were taking their time.

After a time they were breathing heavily, their exhalations clouding the cold night air. They paused and looked at each other. Each had a hand on the other's face; they both slowly removed their hands and continued to look at each other. Their faces were flushed from the cold and excitement, their eyes bright with need, but they both seemed confused. They looked at each other askance, like they'd been expecting someone else's eyes to be staring back at them.

They awkwardly started to look away and stammer a little. Reason was returning and clearly this was not the norm for either of them. Sam felt her face burn with more than excitement. She started to feel foolish. Had she just forced herself on this stranger?

They both stood there, panting a little, hands at their sides as they sized up the other person. Sam took a faltering step back, then it seemed like he suddenly snapped out of his reverie.

He grabbed her hand, "Wait..."

"Hey, I'm sorry. I, uh...look, I'd better head home. Lemme get that room number down so I can call you tomorrow." She stooped to the ground to pick up the discarded pen and impromptu stationary, and as she retrieved it, Mulder offered her a hand to help her back up. She grasped it and smoothly stood up, but as she rose, Sam found she could no longer meet the gaze that held her in such thrall only seconds ago.

He strode forward, still holding her hand. "You said you'd take lunch in payment for helping me out," he took the barest pause to pull in a longer breath, "what do you say we make it breakfast?"

Her mind stopped. What did he just say?' Sam thought, mind reeling at the implication. When she looked up, he wore that impish grin that had completely undone her before.

Sam stared at him a long moment, sizing him up, trying to decide what his game was. That smile, though; that smile was utterly disarming. This warrior had nothing in her arsenal to battle this. A smile of her own started to light up the woman's features. By the time she replied, she could feel a real puckish tug at the corner of her lips as well.

"I saw the 'free continental breakfast' sign. You're not getting out of it that cheaply, Mulder."

Emboldened by the playful reply, he upped the ante. "I have a feeling we'll be sleeping-in past the complimentary fare. But I think I can spring for lunch, too, if that's what you're after."

She tucked the pen back in her pocket, tucked her doubts back into slumber, and picked up her helmet. Her gaze stayed locked on Mulder's as one lingering thought pushed its way to the surface. 'No. No "if only Jack..." tonight. Tonight is just tonight. I'll deal with the rest of it when I have to. Tonight, there's just Sam.'

She looked away from the tall man's eyes long enough to notice the room key in his hand. She felt her eyes finally take on the brightness she felt in her smile, and as they walked to the motel room door, she realized she was truly looking forward to 'down time'.


End file.
